


What's an Olympian

by Stalkersona



Category: Portal (Video Game), Portal Stories: Mel - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4403840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stalkersona/pseuds/Stalkersona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Wheatley destroys Aperture Science Laboratories another core is facing his own problems, and remembering his own test subject.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's an Olympian

**Author's Note:**

> I have never published anything ever, but I love Portal Stories: Mel so freaking much and I had to write this.

A flash of red yellow and hawaiian flowers sped along the managment rail of Testing Track VIRGIL_01. The core slowed and finally stopped above one of the many catwalks hidden between rooms and chambers. His Optic Protection Plates slammed shut as an explosion rocked the entirety of Aperture Science Laboratories. Rubble fell over and around him as the corrupted core now in charge of everything tore the facility apart.  
Virgil was panicking, plain and simple. His beloved testing track was being destroyed in front of him, and he could do nothing. As a maintenance core, he was not very happy with these circumstances. Not to mention his only exit had been broken, and he didn’t have her to help him this time. Her.  
Mel. The ginger that he had helped escape. All at once Virgil missed her and was relieved she was gone. He had saved her from this, the core could be certain of that. His olympian was far away from this chaos, at least he prayed she was.  
Another major system fail resulted in another explosion much too close to Virgil for his liking, and brought down the wall next to him. However he most certainly did not scream, and any robot that said otherwise would’ve been a big fat liar. Once the dust settled he realized that it wasn’t a chamber he was looking into, but instead a ventilation room that must connect to one of his tests.  
As there were no management rails in the vents he had never seen the inside of one of these rooms. Honestly it was filthy, old cans and jugs of water all over the floor. The broken radio playing static didn’t help the atmosphere at all. Another explosion, this one luckily farther away.  
Virgil shook it off and continued to examine the room, hoping there was some sort of safety for him. However, it wasn’t until he looked at the wall closest to him did he see it…

LOCATING MEMORY DUMP LOCATION 00000000_MEL  
SHOWING MEMORY FILE 00335781

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What was with this woman and going into the vents? He had warned Mel about the creepy artists but she seemed intent on exploring the places Virgil couldn’t reach. Oh well, he supposed she was an adult human and could watch herself for a few minutes. The lady was an olympian after all, not a gold medalist, but an olympian all the same! The sound of tin being knocked over echoed from the tunnel, knocking him from his thoughts.  
His database informed him it was the sound of a can, and after scanning for her biosigns and verifying Mel was still alive, he concluded that she had found one of the Rattman’s ‘nests.’ He had heard about them from the nanobots, rooms full of trash with the walls covered in paintings and warnings. Whom the artist had been trying to warn, Virgil couldn’t tell, but the core knew they had probably never gotten the message.  
The floral robot was once again startled out of his ponderings. This time by the return of his ginger test subject from the vent. “There you are! I had begun to get worried about you being in there for so long.” Mel gave him a reassuring smile before settling her grip on her yellow portal device. The splotches of paint on her arms and jumpsuit did not go unnoticed by the maintenance core, but Virgil decided against asking since the former track runner was ready to move on with their grand escape. With one last glance and an oddly fond smile towards the vent, his companion took off towards the next elevator and the next test, and who was he to hold her back? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His optic was as wide as it could be. The memory file had stunned the core, and the walls falling around him no longer mattered. All that mattered now was the messy red ball with a yellow eye looking back at him. A hand painted portrait just for him. He scanned over the words smudged above the artwork as another explosion shook the facility. His lower protective plate rose over his optic in his sad smile. She had done this for him. These were her words smeared onto the rusted wall in black paint.  
There was shouting now. That corrupted core screaming about something or other to the girl that ‘betrayed’ him. Virgil ignored it. He would never know the ending to that story. Though, as the rail next to him broke into a point and fell, he knew the human would win. Even if she wasn’t his olympian.

ERROR. ERROR. FULL BREACH OF CASING. ERROR. ERROR.  
PERMANENT SHUTDOWN OF MAINTENANCE CORE 0003016_VIRGIL INITIALIZED  
PERMANENT SHUTDOWN IN 3...2...1…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A year.

It had taken Her a full year to completely fix the damage that little moron had created in his short reign as king of Aperture. However, it had been fixed, and GLaDOS could begin work on the damage during her period of death. A small shudder rocked through her; death had been so very dull. All the more reason to return her attentions to erasing any reminder of that monster.  
A spike of fear in a group of nanobots caught her attention. Her curiosity won and she pulled up the view from the camera in the chamber the nanobots had been repairing. The AI grew still, taking in the source of the fear infecting her little workers. Gruesome, was the word she would use, with a hint of irony and a dash of interest.  
There, pinned to the wall by a piece of fallen railing, was an older maintenance core with a handsome floral casing. It was broken of course, dead beyond dead, useless to Her. Boring really, but what caught her interest was its “smile.” As if he had been happy in his final moments.  
Maybe the graffiti it had been nailed to had been part of it, but as the core’s broken body hid the whatever was there in red, GLaDOS could not tell. With a quick command the nanobots covered the grave of their robotic comrade. She would let it rest in peace there. the words forever stained above it like the engraving on a gravestone.

WHAT’S AN OLYMPIAN WITHOUT HER COACH?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


End file.
